Professional learning for teachers: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Recently, teachers have faced a multitude of challenges arising from the disruption caused by the pandemic to students’ school experience, the diversity of the school population, and the normalisation of digital technologies in everyday life. These challenges give rise to forms of collaboration that generate new learning ecologies that provide opportunities for teachers’ learning and professional development. In this sense, the aim was to investigate how teachers’ professional learning takes place in these ecosystems, focusing on professional practices and ways of working to enhance students’ learning, and well-being. The methodology took a mixed approach, sequential explanatory typology, beginning with data collection and analysis, based on a questionnaire survey of teachers from five school clusters in different areas of Portugal, followed by focus groups with teachers from various disciplines and influential figures in the school community due to their innovation and/or coordination roles. The results show that teachers see themselves as fundamental to improving student learning, participating in interdisciplinary, national and international projects and local community initiatives, promoting student learning and well-being, even if there is no consensus on what constitutes well-being. They also indicate that teachers create various forms of professional collaboration and use digital platforms and tools in their professional practices. Although it can be concluded that the new ecosystems have generated learning opportunities, there are differences in teachers’ understanding of their contribution to continuous professional learning.